


gibraltar may tumble

by JustStandingHere



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Real Estate as a Metaphor, Schemes and Parties as a Love Language, also, lavender marriages, the main enemy was repression all along! who'd have thunk!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25483102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustStandingHere/pseuds/JustStandingHere
Summary: "Now the world seems open and full of unknown things. And so quickly, too. He feels like if he acts it'll be reckless. And it's very, very easy to be reckless around Hawkeye. The man practically invented the term for him when he escorted BJ around Korea in a stolen Jeep."
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Peg Hunnicutt/OFC
Comments: 50
Kudos: 217





	gibraltar may tumble

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was fueled by edibles and my love of double meanings. All mistakes are my own, and trust me, I'll be fixing them when I'm more awake. Title comes from the Ella Fitzgerald song "Love is Here to Stay". Enjoy!

BJ stews for a week after he gets the news. He checks it over and over, he looks at the pictures, he tries to make sure he got it right. He goes over the phone conversation in his head. He paces himself silly, until he walks straight into the pole in the center of the swamp and ends up with a mighty cut on the forehead from a bent nail.

"What were you doing?" Hawkeye asks him as he patches him up. He's brought a kit to the Swamp, and they're slumber party crossed-legged across from each other along on the length of Hawkeye's cot. 

BJ shrugs. "The pole moved."

"Straight towards you?" he counters, and BJ laughs, despite feeling miserable. 

Hawkeye finishes up the last stitch, and BJ hands him the scissors from his bag before he even asks. "Okay," BJ admits, "I was distracted, no big deal."

"We can't call ourselves a surgical team if one of our doctors keeps forgetting what year it is," Hawkeye tells him.

"What was it again? 1952?" BJ asks. Hawkeyes glares at him, but there's a smile starting come up the corners of his mouth. "1978?" Hawkeye snips the 3-0 thread. "1924, that's my final offer."

Hawkeye laughs at the joke and runs a thumb over the stitch. BJ tries not to lean into it. "It'll hold," Hawkeye says, voice low, and lowers his hand. Funny, BJ thinks, he doesn't usually doubt himself like that. Maybe BJ's a special case. "You gonna tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," BJ says, even though something is, and it's trapped at the bottom of his lockbox and buzzing somewhere in the phone lines. But its day 3 of constant on and off choppers, and Hawkeye's got bags under his eyes from worse, and to be honest BJ doesn't know how to talk about it. He doesn't know if he can. "Honest. Just...you know how it is."

Hawkeye searches his face. "Sure," he says. "Sure I do." He goes over the stitches again, fingers light, and contacts a bruise that's beginning to circumnavigate the wound. BJ winces, and the hand drops again. Hawkeye smiles. "Let's fix you up something for that headache."

He gets off the bed and ambles to the still. It's amazing, BJ thinks, how he can move so well around glass with a body that's all angles. He watches Hawkeye fix him a martini, humming a showtune under his breath, and feels his chest grow warm with something. 

He should call it what it is. He really should.

* * *

_Besides the obvious, the thing he remembers most about the day he got the letter was the smell of gasoline. One of the lieutenants has spilled a drum of it while refilling one of the Jeeps. The whole camp wafted with it, and there was an order to not set anything alight until they had it all cleaned up. In the hills one could see Klinger smoking a cigar and wearing a dress the color of lemon marmalade, with a lovely sun hat to match._

_The envelope was heavy in his hands, he remembered that as well. Inside he'd been happy to find a couple pictures of Erin toddling around the beach, and a crayon drawing of a few waves teeming with multicolored, wax-scented fish. He was less happy to find the letter that followed, written in scribbled handwriting._

_It was short--it had to be, and it didn't name any names. But there was photo taped to the bottom, in full color, of two women glued to the hip at the beach, their smiles wide and happy. He recognized them as Peggy and Peggy's friend, Val. She mentioned her in his letters as much as BJ mentioned Hawkeye in his._

_They stood out, the two of them, on the dark sand. Peggy has her arm wrapped around Val's side. On the back was written "Beach Day at Pacifica. Warm day. Great day. Call me, we need to talk."_

* * *

It's not long after bumping his head that BJ is awoken in the middle of the night by an insistent Hawkeye.

"Wounded?" he asks, because of course there would be. _War hates sleep almost as much as it hates people_ , Hawkeye's told him multiple times. "How many?"

"No, no," Hawkeye says. "No, now get your shorts on and come on."

BJ blinks. "To what?"

Hawkeye grins. "You'll see."

He wrestles on a pair of pants Hawk hands him. In the light of the lanterns, everything is in half-shadow. He can barely see the outline of Hawkeye lounging in the doorway. He thinks that, were it not for Charles snoring like a wood chipper, it might almost look romantic. Like something out of the movies.

Once they're out of the Swamp Hawkeye takes BJ by the wrist and walks with a determined, if not slightly sneaky, step. The pattern is easy to fall into, of walking around like something's afoot. BJ has no clue what it could be, but he's anxious to find out.

Their first stop is at the mess tent. Hawkeye tells him to keep watch, and five minutes later comes back out with a can of tomato paste, and a bag of flour. He tosses the can to BJ, who catches it without thinking, before they're both secreting into one of the supply buildings. Hawkeye digs into his pockets and pulls out a rouge compact and what looks to be a case of face powder. 

"Margaret's powder, Klinger's rouge," he explains, as if the plan will manifest magically before BJ’s eyes. Which, of course, it does. "Now let's get to work."

BJ starts opening the can of tomato paste. Hawkeye takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and starts lightly scraping any of the powder out and onto it with his finger.

It's an easy rhythm to fall into. It always is, with Hawkeye. It's almost like breathing. "Won't Klinger and Margaret notice their makeup's gone?" he asks. "Or better yet, notice _us_ when we try to give it back to them?"

"Klinger is currently on guard duty," Hawkeye says. "And Margaret is, uh, _preoccupied_ for the night."

“Oh ho ho! Who's the lucky fella?"

There’s a pause. Hawkeye looks up at him, balancing a look of anticipation and what might be fear. "No fella at all."

Oh. _Oh_. BJ frowns. "Then who's she preoccupied with it?"

Hawkeye moves the handkerchief to the side and sets out a small sample bottle. Again, he scrapes the rouge out in earnest. "You remember that old nurse friend of her's from the 8063rd? Every couple of weeks they meet at the bar there and uh. Stay together until morning."

BJ's already begun to lightly tap the flour into the powder compact, but pauses. "You don't mean--"

"She knows how Margaret likes her powdered eggs in the morning? I sure do."

"But she—I mean, what about all the others?"

"Others? Like Mr. Donald 'Barely There' Penobscot? Like Frank?"

He has a point there. "I suppose anyone who sleeps with Frank is doing it avoid anything else." He frowns. "Wait, how do you know this?"

Hawkeye shrugs. "We hens gaggle from time to time. Typical things, you know, whose got runs in their stockings, who's kissing who in the apple tree, who we want to pull our pigtails, that sort of thing."

 _Who do you want pulling your pigtails?_ BJ thinks. He almost says it aloud, except he’s afraid of what the answer might be.

"Without me?" he asks instead, as lighthearted as possible.

It doesn't work. Hawkeye grins. "Jealous?" he asks. 

BJ waves his hands dismissively, sending some flour Hawkeye's way. "In your dreams." In the half-light of the lanterns it almost looks like dust through a windowsill on a sunny day. _In my dreams_ , he thinks. Pauses.

It all feels a bit too close to something resembling the truth. So BJ, naturally, dips his finger in the can of tomato paste and smears it on his lips. "Do you think this is a good color on me?" he asks.

Hawkeye looks up and fights the long, hard battle of unleashing a manic laugh and trying to keep themselves on the down low. What's left is a wheezing, half-gasping thing that has BJ's heart going soft and joining in with him.

"I dunno," Hawkeye says between giggles. He takes the finger that's been scraping out the rouge and paints across his mouth with one broad stroke. "What do you think?"

"Summer color," BJ plays along, trying not to laugh. "And you're definitely more of a winter."

Hawkeye erupts in mock offense. "I could say the same to you! Here!" He takes the rouge and smears a long line down the side of BJ's face, or he tries to, but ends up getting his neck in the process. BJ retaliates with some flour in Hawkeye's hair to "give it some color". So on and so forth. It’s all just a big game to see how far they press their fingers into each other without being obvious. Maybe they are. It’s too early in the morning to tell.

By the end of it they're sneaking out of Klinger and Houlihan's tents covered in flour, faces marked with red lines.

In the morning, when Klinger has eau de marinara wafting around him and a cakey-looking Margaret throws their dishes out of the mess tent, it might be enough for BJ to feel better.

“Wasn’t looking forward to beans à la bland anyway,” Hawkeye says. He grins against the breeze circulating through the camp. He’s still got a strip of red down the side of his cheek that he missed in the shower. It takes every muscle in BJ’s body not to lick it clean.

It’s _almost_ enough to make BJ feel better. Almost.

* * *

_When he's finally able to use the phone, it's the middle of the night. Radar's pretending to be fast asleep in the corner cot, and BJ's been choosing his words carefully._

_“You got the letter.” Peg’s voice is crisp and clear. BJ misses it a little bit, in that homesick way._

_“I did.”_

_“And?”_

_“And what?”_

_“And I want to know how you feel about it!”_

_“What can I say?” BJ asks, too loud. He lowers his voice. “What can I say?” It’s a literal question. “I can say I’m happy for you, that’s true.” It sounds too close to the truth, so he falls back into their old language. “About the, uh, house, I mean.”_

_Peg hums. “I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”_

_“But I also feel…” He winces and rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. He looks at the picture in his lap, and the way Peg and Val are smiling. The way their hands are wrapped around each other’s hips. “I don’t know, Peg. Will my room still be there after all this is over?”_

_“Of course, down the hall,” Peg says. “But weren’t you going to move to Maine?”_

_“I—“ He has to be careful. He can feel Radar peeking over the blankets with one eye open. “I haven’t looked around at any of the houses yet. Or how much they’ll cost.”_

_“I think I know a guy who’ll let you move in for free.”_

_BJ can’t help but laugh at that. “Well, you know what they about things that are too good to be true.”_

_“Oh, I don’t know about that. In my experience with real estate, there’s always a perfect match. I found mine right here in Mill Valley, and I think yours is in Maine. Big windows, tall ceilings, a lot of character—I highly recommend.”_

_BJ sighs. “It’s not that easy,” he says. “Getting a house.”_

_“It was for me,” Peg says. “Incredibly easy, like it was a dream. I think you’re having a hard time moving in.”_

_“Maybe I am,” BJ says, and thinks about how after this he won’t get any sleep, and how he’ll nail Hawkeye’s shoes eight feet up the tent pole so he can make a joke about high tops. He rubs his eyes. “You’ll still send me letters?”_

_“Of course. You?”_

_“Of course. I’ll send something over for Erin. And I’m happy for you, really.”_

_“I’m glad.” She pauses, and whispers her next couple words like an ill-kept secret. “I hope one day I’ll be happy for you, too.”_

* * *

For the next few weeks, BJ walks in a fog. He nods along to Hawk's jokes about the food, but doesn't say much. He finds himself at the still most nights. At one point he snaps at a nurse about grabbing the wrong kind of clamp, and then goes into a spiel that he immediately regrets.

Hawkeye asks him about it. Over and over he asks him, in different ways. 

"Something distracting you from this comedy gold?" he asks in the mess tent.

"From the looks of the still, you're trying to drown something," he says at the Swamp.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, once everyone's left the surgical room and it's just the two of them on the bench.

BJ wants to tell him. He tells him so much already. "Nothing's wrong," he says instead, and suggests a foray to Rosie's, and that is that.

And the thing is, nothing's wrong. Really. Peggy's got a girlfriend, she's had them before. But never the hip-hugging kind. Never the "house in Mill Valley" kind. He feels a little left behind. Throughout it all he thought that maybe, in the end, they'd just settle for each other. Just give it up and go along with the story. He's been fine with settling his whole life, but now…

Now the world seems open and full of unknown things. And so _quickly_ , too. He feels like if he acts it'll be reckless. And it's very, very easy to be reckless around Hawkeye. The man practically invented the term for him when he escorted BJ around Korea in a stolen Jeep. 

He doesn't want to be reckless with this. He wants something that counts. 

At Rosie's, after he's drifted into this cycle of thought again, Hawkeye taps him on the shoulder. "Something on your mind?" he asks. 

BJ wants to tell him. BJ wants to not be reckless. These things are, as far as he can see, mutually exclusive.

"Real estate," BJ answers instead, and changes the subject before Hawkeye can comment.

* * *

Hawkeye's been acting strange. Or, stranger than usual. Bigger in every aspect—singing louder in the shower, sitting on the tops of the mess hall tables, putting on some sort of striptease at the end of a long day of surgery. Every other night he's pulling BJ out for some harebrained nonsense like adding salt to the powdered milk or spelling obscene words out of Charles's laundry up in the hills. 

It's exhilarating.

It's exhausting. Especially now.

It took BJ about twenty days to fall in love with Hawkeye from the time he first met him, and with every grand gesture and witty aside he thinks that maybe he got the date wrong, because the feeling keeps getting stronger and stronger. Its times like these, however, that he doubts himself.

It is 3 in the morning. BJ has not slept in over 40 hours—not because of surgery, but because Hawkeye has somehow convinced the entire unit to “celebrate a wound free week” for as long as possible. “I’m trying to break the world record,” Hawkeye tells him, and BJ almost believes him. Anytime someone heads in the direction of their own cot, Hawkeye is there pulling them back—mostly BJ. _Especially_ BJ, even though he's cycled from drunk to hungover to sober too many times to count in the past 2 days.

It’s all good fun, at any rate. Charles sulks in the corner with his brandy, trying to convince anyone who passes by him to ask him about the book he’s reading. Margaret attempts to tend bar before dumping half a bottle of liquor on Radar’s face—something about mishearing a request about Nehis. Potter and Klinger are both half-fallen asleep at the same table. BJ’s a bit gone himself at this hour, so much so that when Hawkeye strikes out with the nurses again he can’t help but sidle up beside him, hand almost in the other man’s back pocket.

“No luck?” he asks.

Hawkeye does a flimsy wave. “I’m too refined for their tastes.” He gestures to the nurses not three feet away.

“Like salt,” says Nurse Tucker.

BJ hums. “Like sugar.”

Hawkeye grins and points to BJ’s face. He might even lean in a little bit—BJ’s too drunk to tell. “Would you look at that?” he says to the nurses. “He called me _sweet_.”

"As a peach," BJ riffs.

"And keen as can be." For a moment they're in their own little bubble, where everything floats on dry land and things seem easy. But it breaks when Hawkeye turns back to the nurses with a clumsy wink. "Ladies."

The nurses rolls their eyes and go back to their conversation. Hawkeye sways a bit. He is very, very drunk, which is a feat to accomplish given the circumstances. For a moment they stay there, pressed up against each other’s sides. It’s nice. If BJ were to close his eyes he could imagine a whole different context around this, easy. No nurses, no army, no excuses. He looks down at Hawkeye and catches the man staring back at him. The context shifts back at a frightening pace. It must be evident on BJ’s face, because the next thing he knows Hawkeye is rocketing towards the piano.

"Hey father, do you know Minnie the Moocher?" Hawkeye asks Father Mulcahy, swaying as he does so.

BJ only barely catches up, and already he sees a bad idea coming. “Hawk—"

Father Mulcahy continues playing, albeit with distractedly. “Uh, I don't _think_ so,” he says, in the tone of someone who definitely does. “But maybe—"

"It's alright, I'll get you started,” Hawkeye says, patting him on the back. He cups his hands and starts to sing. “ _Folks, here's a story 'bout Minnie the Moocher! She was a red-hot hoochie-cooch—_ "

BJ grabs him by the elbow. ”O _kay_ , I think it's time for bed."

Hawkeye waves him off and nearly falls over. “You say that, but then you're so frigid in the moment."

BJ chuckles and catches him. ”Come along, lover boy,” he says, and tugs him out of the officer’s club and into the open air.

Out in the open, where only the guards are standing duty, the ridiculousness of the situation settles in. They've been partying for nearly two days straight, they're in Korea, and they're drunk. Hawkeye is still singing Minnie the Moocher. BJ's in absolute love with him and doesn't know what to do with it.

It's so ridiculous that he takes one look at Hawkeye and starts laughing. Hawkeye, naturally, joins in. They keep stumbling towards the swamp, colliding into each other and then into various walls like squash balls.

Hawkeye ricochets off a pile of crates and back into BJ, and seems to acknowledge his existence as if it's the first time he's seen him in hours. "Ach! What you are you doing out here?" He pushes Bj back towards the officer's club. "You should be partying your heart out."

BJ recovers and pushes him towards the Swamp. "You need to sleep." Hawkeye makes a face, a kind of 'yes dear' expression that forms so easily on his brow and lips you'd think he'd been doing it for years. "You'll thank me in the morning."

When they get inside, Hawkeye stands next to the door. 

"Are you ever gonna tell me what's wrong?" Hawkeye asks him, because of course he would.

BJ shifts the blankets back on his cot with force. "Are you ever going to stop asking?"

"No," Hawkeye says. Then, softly, "Are you gonna go back to the party?"

A tug of boots off feet. "No."

Hawkeye shrugs, but not in his usual way. This seems less like nonchalance and more like he's lost a battle. "Then we're both at an impasse." Hawkeye flops onto his own bed, boots and all.

And that's when BJ realizes: it's all been for him. The party, the songs, the grand show of personality. All for him and his sour mood. Hawkeye's been _taking care of him_ , and he thinks that might just be enough to kiss him, because it feels like it, so he walks over to the bed and—

And he sways. Because he's drunk. Because Hawkeye is drunk. And he thinks that if he wants to say thanks like that, he should do it when it counts.

BJ drops down to the ground and starts to work Hawkeye's boots off instead. They've still got nail holes in them. 

"I really appreciate this, Hawk, I do," he says, undoing the laces. "I appreciate all you’re doing."

Hawkeye folds his hands over his stomach. "Me? I'm not doing anything. How dare you suggest I'm ever doing something."

"Hawkeye." He tugs the boots off. "Thank you. I needed this."

He goes to his bed and turns off the light. In the dark, he hears Hawkeye, hoarse. "What can I say? I need you happy. Sue me."

BJ doesn't respond. Some things are best left in the dark.

* * *

Peg and him keep sending each other letters. Specially worded, of course. Erin sends a drawing of the three of them at the zoo—or maybe it’s an aquarium, with how fishy the tiger looks—and a drawing of the sun that he puts up above his bed. There’s photos attached, sometimes. One is of Val lounging in the front yard, sunlight hitting her face and the wind in her hair, with a big smiley face drawn on the back. BJ has half a mind to think that Peg is showing off to him.

“What do you need the company camera for?” Radar asks him whilst puttering around the colonel’s office.

“Getting even with a friend,” BJ tells him. “I’ll only have it for an hour or two.”

Radar looks him. BJ gives him his best smile. With a sigh, Radar goes into the colonel’s desk and retrieves the camera. “This better be worth it,” he says.

Twenty minutes later he walks into post op to find Hawkeye wrestling a patient back into bed. Instinct kicks in quick, and he’s there to hold down the man’s feet as Hawk and Margaret pin his arms to the bed. The kid’s a patchwork of gauze and plaster.

“You can’t make me go back!” the kid yells. “I won’t let you! None of you are making me go back out there!”

“If you keep moving, you won’t be able to go home!” Hawkeye yells back at him. “You’re going to tear your stitches!”

“You can’t make me!”

“We’re not making you!” Margaret tells him. She gives a look to Hawkeye, who gives a look to BJ. They’ve done this so many times BJ swears he could do this with his eyes closed; the needle’s in his hand by the time he’s realized he’s gotten up. 

Margaret holds the soldier’s arm down as BJ administers the sedative. The kid gives one last thrash for good measure, and must do damage on something given the scream that comes from him. He doesn’t even get to finish shouting before he’s cut off by unconsciousness. 

“He’s reopened a couple wounds in his side,” Margaret says, keeping pressure. “We’re going to need to operate again.”

“Why do I have the feeling I’m living the same day over and over again?” Hawkeye asks no one. The patient’s already being moved into the operating room.

“Do you need any help?” BJ asks.

Hawkeye looks at him, the camera strapped around his neck, and then to him again. There’s a moment where it looks like he’s going to ask about it, but it’s short-lived. “Can you take my shift while I’m in there?”

“Of course,” BJ says. Hawkeye gives him a warm look and disappears behind the swinging doors.

He reappears four hours later. He’s removed his scrubs, but there’s still a bit of blood splatter on his face. The exhaustion seems to drag him down by the shoulders, and he barely lifts his feet as he makes his way across the room. Without a word he deposits himself next to BJ at the desk.

There’s only one question he can ask, really. “Did he make it?”

Hawkeye nods. “Just barely. God, Beej, he was so afraid of going back out there. You should’ve seen the look in his eyes when we said he might be sent back, it was like a—a deer in headlights, only worse. And if he was sliced up before, well. He could be a whole charcuterie board if he wanted to be.”

BJ lays a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder. In a perfect world, he’d probably wrap the man up and whisk him away to Disneyland, or the shores of Maine, or anywhere but Korea, but here they are. “At least he’s ensured his discharge now,” he says.

A small smile cracks through Hawkeye’s tired face. “There is that.”

BJ pats him on the shoulder. He spies the camera still sitting on his desk, two hours overdue, and picks it up. In the viewfinder, Hawkeye looks at him and starts shaking his head.

“Oh, no,” Hawkeye starts. “No, no, no.”

BJ lowers the camera. “Come on. For me?”

“What’s it even for?”

“Fun!” He brings the camera up again. “Now come on, say cheese!”

Hawkeye gives him a derisive look through the viewfinder. “Okay. Provolone. Swiss. Asiago. That enough cheese for you?”

“You forgot cheddar,” BJ says. Hawkeye gives him a little smile at that, face still splattered with blood, and BJ snaps the picture.

One week and one nervous lecture from Radar later, BJ looks at the finished product. He puts one copy in the bottom of his footlocker. The other one sits in an envelope, with a large smiley face drawn on the back, already on its way to Mill Valley.

* * *

Let's imagine its the beginning again. When BJ first arrives in Korea, all he dreams about is his kitchen. He imagines Erin in her high chair and Peggy at the windowsill. He dreams that they all have a pleasant day together, all inside the kitchen. They keep making meals that makes his stomach growl when he wakes up. They never really leave the kitchen, and if they do they always go to the beach where everyone's gorgeous and suntanned and in swim trunks. Peg and Erin usually don't follow for those ones.

Slowly but surely, all of his dreams start to smell like gasoline. And soon Klinger's having tea with Peg, and Radar's trying to make soup in the kitchen, and Charles and Margaret are both wiping dust off the counter, and Potter's spoon feeding the baby. Hawkeye's nowhere to be seen. BJ stays away from the beach.

But enough about dreams.

Imagine it's his first winter in Korea now. They have to run to the 8063rd for supplies. Which stinks because now BJ and Hawk are literally stuck in a rut with nowhere to go.

The trip there had been fairly easy—BJ was slightly surprised, actually, by how smoothly things went. It'd quickly become routine for him to wake up and expect something to go awry.

Maybe that was why, when the captain warned about going back after sundown, BJ had said they'd be fine. He supposes he should've known that potholes didn't listen to blind confidence, and neither did busted tires.

The Jeep’s been pushed off to the side of the road, behind some bushes. They've killed the lights and the engine—it's already been an hour without any cause for alarm, but it's too risky to do otherwise until morning. Someone will figure something’s gone wrong, there’s no doubt about that, but for now the two of them are sitting in the backseat passing a flask to keep warm.

“Jesus Christ, it’s so cold I can’t even tell if I’m sitting or not,” Hawkeye chatters out. He takes a sip of the flask, shakes it, and throws it to the front of the car. “No booze, no blankets—”

“No food,” BJ adds, “no beds.”

“No nothing.”

They shiver in silence for a few moments together. In this kind of cold, the only other sound around them is the creaking of tree branches, like they’re tensing up and getting ready for the fighting to start. Even the landscape has shell shock. 

It seems like a quip Hawkeye would say, but the man's too fidgeting with his gloves and waxing miserable about everything else. BJ's been in love with Hawkeye for two months now and he thinks he could get high off of these rants if he distilled them correctly.

"—no coffee, no roof, I mean what kind of cars are these that they have no roof? Is the army really that cheap that they decided to do away with them altogether? Or did they think we'd all look so handsome in a convertible the enemy would ceasefire? And that's another thing! No fire! No warmth. Just wind."

“We have each other,” BJ reminds him.

Hawkeye sighs. “Yeah, there’s that.”

He looks absolutely miserable, cheeks done flushing pink and going straight to raw red, his hat pulled over his ears and bits of hair tickling his nose. BJ has the incurable urge to move them out of the way. Hawkeye digs his hands further under his armpits.

Pursing his lips, BJ stands up in the Jeep. “Lay down,” he says. “On your side.”

Hawkeye frowns. “Huh?”

BJ nudges him with his foot. “Come on, trust me.”

Hawkeye does as he says. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” he jokes.

BJ chuckles despite himself. “Only the ones freezing death. Now scoot up against the back of the seat.”

Once Hawkeye’s made some room, BJ carefully lays himself down next to him. They lay there face-to-face, BJ’s ass hanging off the seat and their knees overlapping because they’re both too tall to stretch out along the width of the Jeep. Their foreheads are near touching, and all he can see is the rough outlines of Hawkeye's face. “There,” BJ says. He can see his breath landing on Hawkeye's nose and tries to not act like it delights him endlessly. “Now at least we won’t become icicles overnight.”

"Huh?" There's a look on Hawkeye's features, but it's too dark to parse it out.

"It's not much, but the collective body heat should keep us warm until morning."

Hawkeye hums. “You know, if you wanted me for my body heat, all you had to do was ask.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” He readjusts a little. It’s not much, but it’s considerably warmer than when they were sitting next to each other. When he looks back up, Hawkeye’s still looking at him. He supposes the man doesn’t have much else to look at. BJ's feeling toasty already. “Come on, let’s pass the time.”

“Like how?”

“Like...talk. If you could do anything after the war’s over, what would you do?”

Hawkeye rolls his eyes. “I’m going back to Maine to take care of my dad.”

“Not what you’re _going_ to do, what you _could_ do.”

The trees creak above them. It's nice here. Even with the frigidity to his backside, his whole body is starting to feel a bit more at ease. BJ’s beginning to feel his hands again. 

“I think I’d become a lighthouse keeper," Hawkeye says eventually.

It’s not the answer BJ expects. A laugh jumps out of him. “Really?”

“Yes, really! Stop that!”

“Sorry, sorry. I just thought you’d...I don’t know, try to sail the Tropic of Cancer or something. Set up a practice on the beach.”

“Maybe. I dunno. I think there’s something to being responsible for the lighthouse, y’know? Keeping the flame lit, being there on the stormy nights. Not to mention, I’d look rather dashing in a sweater and cap.”

He can imagine it easily: Hawkeye, somewhere off the coast of Maine, smoking a cigar on a cloudy morning on the railing. “Wouldn’t it get lonely?”

Hawkeye’s quiet for a bit. “I suppose. Maybe I’d plant some roses.” He wrenches a hand out and hits BJ lightly on the chest with it. “How about you, huh? What’d you do after the war?”

BJ shrugs. “Go home to Peggy and Erin, I suppose.”

“No, no,” Hawkeye says, shaking his head. “Not what you’re _going_ to do, what you _could_ do.”

A particularly powerful wind jets through, making the Jeep shake and groan. BJ really can't imagine anything other than Peggy and Erin, but then again it's all he's really allowed himself to think about. He's grown accustomed to nipping anything else in the bud. “Your lighthouse idea doesn’t sound too bad,” he admits.

Hawkeye blinks. “Really?”

“Really. I could see some pink roses.”

“Too tacky,” Hawkeye argues, face scrunched up. “Red, though. I like a good red.”

BJ nods. “Red it is, then. And I’d probably have to borrow some sweaters and caps from you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“We’ll just keep them in the same closet.”

BJ nods again, then stops. “Wait, are we living in the same lighthouse in this fantasy of yours?”

“Are we not in yours?”

BJ considers that. He supposes, when he imagines this scenario, it really is the two of them. He adds himself into the little scene he's imagined. They're in blue and brown wool pullovers, smoking cigars and playing cards as the lantern sweeps its hand across the sea. Maybe watching the sunrise together. He realizes, suddenly, that he’s never seen the sun come up over the water. Only sink down below.

“I suppose we would be,” he says. “I think we’d cause a lot of shipwrecks as competing lighthouse keepers. Best if we stick together.” The thought sends something through his stomach. He wonders if Hawkeye can feel it with them being this close. "So, does this mean shared bunks as well?"

"Oh, definitely. And a bathroom, and a toothbrush. We'll be very frugal men."

They spend the next patch of time discussing this fake life together—poker on Wednesdays, cribbage on Friday's, where they'd get their groceries. Where guests would be staying, what beaches and boardwalks they'd frequent. It's a fairly complicated world they've built, just a slumber away from being one of those dreams you have where you've lived an entire lifetime in the span of a night. By the time their voices start to grow slow from the accumulated warmth and the aching in their joints, BJ's imagining them as old men lounging against the rails of a white lighthouse, the seagulls in the distance, and the smell of salt forever trapped in Hawkeye's hair.

Eventually their speech begins to slip into a lazy drawl, thoughts sluggish and fractured.

“Think they’re looking for us?” Hawkeye asks.

“Gotta be,” BJ answers. “Let’s get’sm sleep.” BJ scoots in a little closer, so the rims of their wool hats are touching. He can’t tell if it's because of the cold or because he just wants to be close. 

“Hm,” Hawkeye mutters. “You want a lullaby?” Before BJ can answer, he starts half-humming, half-singing to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain”, only with much dirtier lyrics. BJ does his best not to wake himself up with a laughing fit.

He’s cold, hungry, and exhausted, but it’s happiest he’s been in…god, he doesn’t even know. There’s an ease with Hawkeye he’s never felt anywhere else, and BJ realizes that this might be it for him. Not in terms of death—though that's a thought—no. BJ's fallen in love before, but not like this. Not like it's supposed to be easy.

It's his last thought before drifting into a deep sleep, the kind where you float in the dark for a bit before coming back up. He welcomes it fully.

When morning comes, they’re still in the same spot. There’s a moment of drowsiness, where they’re burrowing into each other to keep out the cold, and BJ can smell the wool of Hawkeye’s scarf.

The search party finds them like that. Klinger and Potter crack a couple jokes at their expense. BJ laughs and makes a couple jokes of his own, because he has to, but Hawkeye stays uncharacteristically quiet. When the tire's fixed and they're driving back, BJ flashes him a smile to try and lighten whatever mood Hawk's put himself into, and it works. Soon enough he's making wisecracks about the Franklin expedition.

Later that night, under warm blankets, BJ finds himself dreaming about lighthouses.

* * *

Let’s imagine we’re back in the present, then. BJ sits with yarn wrapped around his fingers as Hawkeye crochets at frightening speed. He has no clue what the man is making—it’s summer—but he also knows its the only thing that’ll calm him down, and Hawk has plenty of reasons to be worked up.

This one’s named Lieutenant Garrison, who’s been pushing for early release papers so he can take a hill with some large and very important number on it. This is not the first time it’s happened, and it certainly won’t be the last, but it’s got Hawkeye hooking his crochet needles like they’ve caused him personal harm.

“I just don’t understand it,” he says, eyes wide with passion. BJ likes watching Hawkeye rant, when it’s important. It’s like watching fireworks. “It’s a lousy hill with a lousy number. It doesn’t have a heart or, or lungs! It’s all grass and dirt and mortar holes, I mean who wants something like that?”

“It isn’t about the hill, Pierce,” Charles drones from his desk. “It’s about the winning. The thrill of the hunt!”

Hawk quickens his stitch. “It’s a _hill,_ Charles, not a prize elk. And why are you defending the man?"

Charles barely looks up from his newspaper. "I am not defending him. I am merely _explaining_ him."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather you explain elsewhere." He waves his project towards the door. 

Charles gives a derisive look at Hawkeye, and then to BJ, as if he's going to have a different point of view.

"Yes, Charles," BJ supplements. "Between us two and your head the tent's about to burst."

Charles grumbles, snaps his paper shut with as much force as possible, and storms off somewhere else. Hawkeye continues crocheting. BJ watches Hawkeye crochet the same way a museum curator would look at a Picasso.

"And why aren't you angry?" Hawkeye asks, because he's got a hard time being alone in things, BJ's figured out. Especially when it comes to big emotions. He spills out all over when no one else is there to share the burden.

"I'm plenty angry," BJ defends. "You just seem to be angry enough for the both of us."

Hawkeye snorts. "I'm angry enough for a whole platoon." He takes his eyes off his crochet project, but keep the needles moving as he looks around the tent. "Am I going crazy? Everyone seems so okay with everything that I feel like I might just be going insane! Like I—like I woke up somewhere else entirely."

"I don't think a lot of people feel as much as you do," BJ tells him.

Hawk looks at him, and then back down to his needles. "Yeah, maybe you're right." He lifts his legs up and sits criss cross, like he’s trying to make himself smaller.

"I wish I could be like you," BJ continues. "I wish it were that easy to say how you feel. I imagine it'd make life a cakewalk."

Hawk snorts. "Believe me, I wouldn't wish this on anybody. It gets worse when you have to keep secrets. Everything—" He gestures in the air. "Everything's so close to coming out, y'know? Even when it's dangerous. _Especially_ when it's dangerous. The best you can do is, is pass it off as a joke and hope no one notices." He glances as BJ again and shakes his head. "I dunno."

BJ purses his lips. "What kind of secrets?"

Hawk laughs. "Now, see, you're just making it difficult for me."

"I live to displease," BJ teases, and shakes the loop of yarn. "Come on, now I'm curious."

There's a moment of pondering before Hawkeye sighs and puts down the needles. He looks BJ in the eyes this time. "Do you really want to know?"

Something in BJ's heart kickstarts into overdrive. The Swamp becomes ten sizes smaller, just the chair, the cot, the yarn, and the two of them. He'd forgotten how close their faces are, he thinks, in the domestic haze of everything else. He's been doing that a lot lately. Some part of BJ is telling him the same thing it's told him since Kimpo: _Go along for the ride. You won't regret it._

"Here's what I propose," he says, trying his best to not sound hoarse. He fails, horribly. "Secret for a secret. Fair is fair."

Hawkeye hums. "You first."

And because they're in this little corner, and BJ's heart rate is already peaking, it spills out of him. "Me and Peg split up," he says.

At first, he thinks Hawkeye might've leaned in closer, only he blinks and suddenly he's retracted back to his cot. "What?"

"I—" He doesn't know how to reconcile with what he's said. He'd never entertained the possibility of saying it aloud, much less the aftermath. Leave it Hawkeye to have him surprise even himself. “Uh. Well—“

“No, no, no,” Hawk yells. He gets up and starts to pace. “No, what? You two it was like, was like—“

“I know,” BJ says. “I know, but—”

“I mean, what was it? The distance? You two sent letters for every day of the week! Was it—was it someone else? Was it—” He puts his hands to his chest, stops, and shakes his head. “No, no. Not that.”

“She found someone else,” BJ says.

Hawk whirls around. “Someone else? _Someone else?_ She thinks she’s found someone better than you? You could look across all seven continents and not find anyone better! I’m beginning to doubt her taste!”

The compliment makes BJ smile, but he winces. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“What’s so complicated about it?”

“Everything!” BJ bursts out. “Everything is so incredibly complicated about it! And if I could tell you, I would, but I can’t! I can’t! It’s—” It’s that they’ve only a piece of canvas between them and the rest of the world. It’s that Charles could come back in at any second, or Radar, or Potter, or MacArthur himself. “It’s nothing that you can fix.”

“Oh yeah?” Hawkeye says, and now BJ knows he’s made a terrible mistake. “Watch me.” The door rocks on its hinges as he storms out.

* * *

After an hour of searching, Hawkeye appears at the 4077th’s front entrance with an envelope stuffed in his back pocket. He gives it to Radar with a quick aside and makes his way back to BJ, whose been standing with his hands on his hips ever since he caught site of the man.

“Where have you been?” BJ asks.

“Saving your marriage,” Hawkeye says without missing a beat. He looks tired, but then again Hawkeye always looks tired. He walks past BJ and towards the officer’s club. “You can thank me later.” 

BJ follows him inside. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Hawkeye looks at him like he’s gone crazy. “Oh, I think you’ll find that I did.” He gestures to Igor. “A double.”

Igor looks up from his notepad. “Of what?”

“Of anything alcoholic.” He turns to BJ with a pinched brow. “And why aren’t you angry?”

BJ shrugs. “You seem plenty angry for the both of us. And I did my time.”

Hawkeye shakes his head. “You weren’t angry. You were pissed, but not angry. If you’d been angry the whole camp would’ve known about it the second some kid came rolling up with a Dear John letter.”

“I—look, can we talk about this somewhere private?” He makes a gesture to the storeroom. Hawkeye sobers a bit and nods.

The place is dingy as all hell, smelling of dropped bottles of booze and moldy peanuts, but it’s quiet and no one can disturb them.

BJ still keeps a lookout before continuing. “You remember what you told me about Margaret and the nurse? The one she visits from time to time?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Peg’s found someone just like that.”

Hawkeye blinks. “ _Just_ like that?”

“Just like that.”

Hawkeye scratches at the back of his head. “Well, that—huh.” He can see the little gears in Hawkeye’s brain turning. “And you’re not angry with her?”

“No. I’m happy for her.”

More turning. “But you’ve been in a bad mood for the past month because of it.”

BJ winces. “Like I said. It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it for me.” He stands with his hands at his sides, as solid as he can make himself. He’s really not going to budge on this.

“It’s…she’s found someone who seems to fit her just right. They can sit in a nice house and be themselves around each other. She’s got all of that, that love and easiness and I—“ _—am in love with you, in the way that I love my heart or my liver or anything that’s a part of me, and I would rather tell you this in an airport, or a lighthouse in Maine, or literally anywhere else but here._ “Don’t.”

Hawkeye stares at him. “You don’t have that.”

“Not currently, no,” he says, which shouldn’t sound like a confession, but it does.

A moment passes. Hawkeye looks to the ground. All BJ can do is take in the fermented air and hope that something happens.

“Right,” says Hawkeye. It’s so flat, it almost feels like it belongs to someone else. “I need to get some air. Alone.” And for the second time today, he leaves BJ feeling more alone and confused than ever.

* * *

Hawkeye’s been acting weird. BJ barely sees him, and it shouldn’t hurt like it does, but what can he do it about it? The next two weeks bring bodies, bodies, and more bodies—some general’s planned an all out assault nearby and they’re the ones getting the brunt of it. There’s barely any space to talk, and when they do it’s…off. They have stilted conversations over open chests, Hawkeye eats all of his own food in the mess tent, and when they have any free time he’s in post op as BJ sits on his cot and wonders just what the hell he did wrong.

Is this Hawkeye rejecting him? It can’t be. Hawkeye would never be that cruel—or, he doesn’t think he would be. To be fair, he doesn’t know if he said enough to even _warrant_ rejecting. All of these half-sayings and looks and gestures…BJ’s starting to get tired of them. 

He tells Peg as much. He doesn’t have anyone else to turn to—he’s seen Margaret around, but whenever they’re in the same general vicinity he gets the stink eye from her. And Charles…well, maybe Charles would understand, but he would also probably wax morose about the state of the Castro instead of giving advice, should they ever breach anything regarding that particular subject. And Klinger, while tempting, might rope him into a Section 8 scheme.

He tries his best to get his emotions across without getting too obvious. It ends up with his looking absolutely heartbroken over a shorefront property, and if Hawkeye knew anything about it he’d probably find it hilarious. The thought only makes BJ feel more bummed out than he was before.

He gets a response back a week later. The envelope is thicker than usual, and comes accompanied with what could only be called sympathy ginger snaps and a drawing from Erin of the moon that BJ reminds himself to put next to the sun. Inside, there’s a letter and another envelope. He pulls both out.

_Dear BJ,_

_It seems the cat’s out of the bag with the new house! I received some lovely letters of congratulations from a friend of ours. I hope the cookies and the drawing brighten your day somewhat. I know things are tough right now. All present company send their condolences._

_Enclosed are some documents about that house in Maine you’d mentioned before—I have to say, BJ, it looks really promising! I’m surprised you haven’t had the movers bring everything over yet._

_All my love,_

_Peg._

The other envelope lays beside him, unopened. BJ picks it up. Documents about the property, huh?

He opens the envelope carefully. Tucked neatly inside is a folded sheet of ruled paper, scribbled all over in Hawkeye’s horribly stereotypical doctor’s script.

_Dear Peg Hunnicutt,_

_I don’t know if I should call you Peg Hunnicutt anymore, if I’m honest. BJ just told me everything, and I have to say this: how dare you? I can see, maybe, MAYBE, getting lonely and slipping up, but full on leaving? The mere idea makes my head hurt. In fact, it’s gotten me so riled up I’ve been walking in the fields. I might even step on a landmine, who’s to say?_

_What I can say, for certain, is that you’ll find no better man than BJ Hunnicutt. You will find no one kinder, or funnier, or braver. The man is the best father out there, bar my own, and he’s doing it all 2,000 miles from home. You will never find a man with more capable hands, or bigger feet. You may have known him longer than me, but the years I’ve spent with BJ have been some of the greatest I’ve spent in this hell. If you could see him now, I’m sure you would be in awe. I know I am._

_So that is why I am asking you to reconsider. In having BJ you’ve won the lottery, and only a fool would give him away. He’s got a way about him that brightens up an OR on a dark night. Please, take him back. He’s the best you’ll ever get._

_Sincerely,_

_Hawkeye Pierce_

BJ reads over the letter again. And again. And again. 

A great swell of love fills the room, and BJ is on his feet. He has to find Hawkeye; thank him, at the least. Although the words are, ultimately, futile, they’re still the nicest BJ has ever heard. He didn’t think it was possible to love someone this much.

It buzzes through him as he searches the camp. He searches the OR, post op, Potter’s office, the mess, everywhere. It’s only when he looks up that he sees a little green dot pacing up on the hill. He doesn’t know anyone else who paces like that.

By the time BJ gets to the top of the hill, he feels dusty all over. The air smells like helicopter fuel and old wood baking in the sun. And Hawkeye is staring at a single, leering tree.

BJ sidles up beside him. The tree is some kind of larch or spruce, and it’s all angles, dark wood crossing over itself. There’s the beginnings of pine cones on its branches. 

“Do you ever think one day this tree will fall?” Hawkeye asks, like nothing’s happened. “I think it will. I think it’ll fall under its own weight one day. No solid foundation. And that’s if it doesn’t get the shit bombed out of it first.” He looks it up and down. “It’s like that because of the wind, y’know? In Maine sometimes you’ll see whole coastlines of trees like this.”

BJ frowns. “It was just doing its best, then.”

“Yeah, well, it’s best is gonna kill it,” Hawkeye snaps. He looks BJ up and down. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I came here to thank you,” BJ says. “And to apologize.”

“I don’t know what I’m being thanked for, but I’m sure I deserve it,” Hawkeye jokes. He plops down in the shade of the tree. BJ, having had the same thought, joins him. It’s almost natural that they’re shoulder to shoulder.

BJ takes the letter out of his pocket. “Peg sent me this,” he says. He stares at the words a little more, fingers careful with the paper. It makes his chest ache something funny. Hawkeye eyes the letter like BJ’s holding a hand grenade.

He points. “You read that?”

“I did,” BJ responds. “A few times, actually. I gotta say, Hawk, you’re quite the salesman.”

Hawkeye hums. “I’m guessing it didn’t work, given the circumstances.”

The pulls out a laugh. “No, no. Or, at least, not the way it was intended.” He looks to Hawkeye. “You know I appreciate you, don’t you, Hawk? This—this is possibly the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me. And besides that, I don’t think I could survive this war without you. It’s been a couple weeks and I’m already as miserable as I’ve ever been.” The wind picks up around them. “I’m sorry if I ever gave you any other impression. I didn’t mean it.”

There’s something to Hawkeye’s face that seems different, now. BJ’s seen it a couple times, during surgery, but he’s never gotten it without the mask. It’s a look of piecing an artery together on the spot. It’s a look of stealing a Jeep. 

“Apology accepted,” Hawkeye tells him. “Let’s pretend it never happened. What were we talking about last, before this?”

“Well,” BJ says, cocking his head to the side. “Last we saw the Pierce-Hunnicutt Super Duo, there was conflict. The dashingly handsome Hunnicutt had just done the double act of exposing the most lavender of marriages, and—“

Hawkeye waves his hand. “Yes, yes, but before that. When the even the more handsome Pierce hadn’t stormed off yet.”

BJ does a good job of pretending to think back. “I believe they were trading secrets.”

“Were they?”

“They were.”

Hawkeye frowns. “And whose turn was it?”

“I believe it was yours,” BJ says, nudging Hawkeye’s shoulder with his own. “Fair’s fair, after all.”

“Right,” mutters Hawkeye. “My turn. Yeah.” Hawkeye watches his hands, his fingers overlapping each other in a display of nerves. BJ watches Hawkeye watch his hands.

He nudges his shoulder again. “So?”

“So what?” Hawkeye asks, looks back at him.

“So what’s your secret?”

The wind weaves its way between the two of them again. No dust, though. It’s a small miracle. “…you really wanna know?” he asks, voice low. 

A grin. “I do.” Then, softer, “I do really want to know.”

Hawkeye takes one of his fidgety hands and places it on BJ’s jaw. It’s warm, and sweaty, and caked in dust. His face soon follows, and then he’s kissing BJ. He’s kissing him like he means it. Like…

Like he’s in love with him.

It’s not news. Or, it isn’t the big slap in the face BJ thought it would be. Instead it rather feels like a puzzle piece clicking into place, forming the big picture. Like this was always going to happen.

Like it’s incredibly easy.

He’s so wrapped up in the feeling that when Hawkeye pulls away, BJ realizes he hasn’t kissed back. Hawkeye drops his head and hand to his chest, and BJ knows that if he looks at his face right now it’s going to break his heart.

“Sorry,” Hawkeye says. He pats BJ on the chest and sits up straight. BJ’s heart breaks a bit. “Sorry, mixed signals, I—”

BJ’s on him as fast as he can be. Maybe a little _too_ fast—they’re both fully on the ground now. Hawkeye whines, and BJ wants to do his very best to get that sound out of him again and again and again. They’ve got their hands in each other’s hair.

BJ pulls away. “No mixed signals.”

Hawkeye giggles. “Apparently not. We’ve been incredibly stupid.”

“We have. But it’s like that old saying.” 

“And what old saying would that be?”

“All’s stupid in love and war.” That makes them both burst out into giggles. BJ takes the opportunity to do some exploratory work on Hawk’s neck. The laughter soon fades down into something more desperate sounding. Hawkeye whines once, twice, and then pushes BJ back up.

“If you keep doing that—“ He doesn’t finish. A thrill goes down BJ’s spine. He goes back down to Hawkeye’s neck, and there’s a few more moans and whines that come out before Hawkeye’s pushing him back up again. “Not that I’m not enjoying this, but I would prefer somewhere indoors, perhaps.”

BJ nods. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Is it dirty?”

“Take a guess.”

When they get closer to camp it becomes a difficult balancing act of keeping their hands off of each other. Since that particular dam has broken, BJ’s wondering how he can go back to acting like nothing’s happened at all. At times he grabs Hawkeye by the edge of his shirt, or Hawkeye will grab him by his sleeve, and there will be a moment or two before they remind themselves where they are.

They check to make sure the storeroom is clear—it is, thankfully. Once BJ is done locking the doors, he grabs Hawk by the front of his shirt and drags him over to the corner mattress.

“I’ll have you know that I’m saving myself for marriage,” Hawkeye jokes. BJ pushes him onto the mattress. “Oh! How scandalous.”

BJ crawls onto him, laughing. When they kiss it feels like the first time all over again, only without all the anxiety and heartache. BJ wants to drown in it. He wants to get at every inch of skin possible, now that he can. In the back of his mind he has a thought, half-coherent, about starving men and feasts, but it doesn’t get too far when Hawk is trying to get his shirt off.

If things speed up, BJ’s blaming lost time. All he knows is that they’ve got their hands down each other’s pants and with every movement his chest swells. He can’t believe he made excuses to get out of this, what was he thinking? Hawkeye talks underneath him, but it’s half-incoherent babble. It drives BJ wild.

It’s over just as quickly as it started, with the both of them panting into each other’s necks and their fatigues in need of a serious wash. When BJ rolls onto his back they’re still gasping for breath. In between the two of them, where their hands overlap, they make a lazy game of touching each other’s fingers, like they’re trying to tease each other into holding hands.

Before BJ can get a word in, Hawkeye beats him to it. “I’ve wanted you so bad for so long that I think it’s become a part of me,” he says bluntly, like he’s read BJ’s mind a hundred times over.

BJ smiles lazily. “Like a heartbeat,” he says. “Or a kidney.”

“Yeah.” Their fingers overlap once, twice. “You?”

BJ looks at him. He imagines they both look a bit like they’ve gone through a tornado and lived to tell the tale, but it suits Hawkeye so well BJ swears to make him look like this more often. “The same,” he says, and grabs hold of Hawkeye’s hand.

“Oh good,” Hawkeye says. He grips back, smiling wide. “Glad we’re on the same page, then.”

* * *

Hawkeye steps out onto the front porch just as BJ finishes pruning the roses. It’s still cold in the mornings, but just enough sunshine is coming through to warm his back and shine a light on the roses. Hawkeye seems to match them in this lighting, arms crossed and red robe on. It’s a different robe than the one he dragged around Korea, but it’s already beginning to show signs of being loved. He stares at BJ, eyebrows raised, until BJ sets his shears down.

“You know they’re not coming until Tuesday,” he says. “And I don’t think Peg and Val are going to be too preoccupied with the state of the front yard.”

“I know,” BJ says from under his hat. “I just wanted to make sure everything looks nice.”

“You can do that in the afternoon,” Hawkeye counters. “You could even do it at night, if you bring a flashlight.”

BJ shrugs. “Yeah, but you know me, I like seeing the sunrise.”

“The sunrise could be better seen elsewhere,” Hawkeye points out.

BJ looks up. “Like in bed with you?”

Hawkeye, arms still crossed, gives the wide-eyed look that points to a fervent, if slightly pissed, _yes_.

BJ grins and stands up. “I’ll make it up to you here in a bit, that sound good?” He walks up the steps to peck him on the cheek, the anger seems to melt off his face.

“Alright,” Hawkeye says, but waves a finger. “But only because I love you.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” He takes Hawkeye by the sleeve and drags him over to the loveseat on the porch, where they sit and take in the view for a bit. The sun’s just risen over the water, casting long shadows. The lighthouse in the distance is almost completely silhouette, and there’s the soft cry of seagulls somewhere in the distance.

They sit there for a long time. In a couple minutes, they’ll retreat back to the bedroom. In a couple hours, they’ll be reading the newspaper to each other and making grocery lists. And in a couple days, Peg and Val and Erin will come walking through the front door, and Erin will call Hawkeye “Hawkie Pearth” in her little toddler lisp. And when Erin’s asleep, they’ll exchange stories under the porchlight with whispered voices and laughs that echo beyond the coastline. And when it’s time for bed, he’ll take Hawkeye’s hand.

In the present, BJ watches Hawkeye look out at the sunrise. “I love you,” he says, because he can, and because it’s easy. It is so, so easy.


End file.
